NHS Band 4 pay after tax

A full-time Band 4 salary in England starts at £28,392. After income tax, National Insurance and NHS Pension contributions you take home £1,873.94 a month.

Band 4 pays £28,392 at entry and £31,157 at the top in England for 2026/27. That is £1,873.94 and £1,990.47 a month after deductions. The top point also moves into a higher NHS Pension tier, which absorbs a large part of the raise.

Estimated take-home pay a month

£1,873.94

£22,487.26 a year from gross pay of £28,392.00

Your details

Where you work EnglandWalesScotland

Band Band 1Band 2Band 3Band 4Band 5Band 6Band 7Band 8aBand 8bBand 8cBand 8dBand 9

Pay point EntryTop

Hours a week

Contracted hours, from 1 to 37.5 a week.

I pay into the NHS Pension Scheme

Student loan None Plan 1 Plan 2 Plan 4 (Scotland) Plan 5 Postgraduate loan as well

Add nights, weekends, London weighting and extra hours

Use weekly averages for a typical week. Unsocial hours form part of your contracted hours. Put hours above your contract in extra hours.

Night and Saturday hours a week

Part of your contracted hours, after applying the whole-shift rule below.

Sunday and public holiday hours a week

Part of your contracted hours. Do not count these again as night or Saturday hours.

London weighting area (England only) NoneInner LondonOuter LondonFringe

High cost area supplement (HCAS), scaled to your contracted hours.

Extra hours a week

All hours above your contracted hours, including public holiday extra hours.

Public holiday extra hours a week

The public holiday share of your extra hours. These count as overtime first.

Whole-shift rule: if more than half of a continuous weekday evening or night shift falls between 8pm and 6am, count the whole shift at the first rate. Apply this before entering your night hours. Sunday and public holiday hours use the second rate.

CalculateReset

Your NHS pay and deductions

Pay or deduction	A year	A month
Basic pay	£28,392.00	£2,366.00
Nights and weekends	£0.00	£0.00
London weighting (HCAS)	£0.00	£0.00
Extra hours at plain time	£0.00	£0.00
Overtime	£0.00	£0.00
Gross pay	£28,392.00	£2,366.00
Pensionable pay	£28,392.00	£2,366.00
NHS Pension (6.5%)	£1,845.48	£153.79
Income tax	£2,793.50	£232.79
National Insurance	£1,265.76	£105.48
Student loans	£0.00	£0.00
Take-home pay	£22,487.26	£1,873.94

How this was worked out

1. Basic pay: £28,392.00 × 37.5 ÷ 37.5 = £28,392.00 a year. Standard week.
2. Hourly rate shown: £14.52. We use the exact rate: full-time salary × 7 ÷ 365 ÷ 37.5. Weekly pay rule. The handbook sets weekly pay as 7/365 of salary but does not fix an hourly divisor for overtime. Your employer may differ by a few pence an hour.
3. Nights and weekends: exact hourly rate × (0 hours × 30% + 0 hours × 60%) × 365 ÷ 7 = £0.00 a year. HCAS is excluded from the base. Unsocial hours rates.
4. London weighting (high cost area supplement, HCAS): £0.00 a year. The full-time percentage is limited by the area's minimum and maximum, then multiplied by 37.5 ÷ 37.5. Part-time rule.
5. Extra hours at plain time: exact hourly rate × hours up to the standard week × 365 ÷ 7 = £0.00 a year. Extra hours rule.
6. Overtime above 37.5 hours: exact hourly rate × overtime hours × 1.5 (or 2 for public holidays) × 365 ÷ 7 = £0.00 a year. Public holiday extra hours count as overtime hours first, up to the hours above the standard week. Overtime rates.
7. Gross pay: the five rounded annual components total £28,392.00. We round each annual component once to pennies, half up, combining both unsocial rates and both overtime rates before rounding. Monthly amounts are annual amounts divided by 12, rounded half up.
8. Pensionable pay: basic pay + regular unsocial pay + HCAS + plain-time extra hours up to the standard week = £28,392.00. Hours above the standard week are excluded, even when paid at plain time. Pensionable extra hours; Regular unsocial pay; Pensionable HCAS. Check your payroll's treatment of regular payments.
9. NHS Pension tier 2: 6.5% of actual pensionable pay = £1,845.48 a year. This is taken before income tax but does not reduce National Insurance or student loan pay. NHS Pension tiers.
10. This is a whole-year tax estimate using the standard tax code, rest of UK income tax and the student loans you selected. A monthly payslip can differ.
11. Salary: £28,392
12. Pension (net pay): £28,392 × 6.5% = £1,845.48, taken off before tax
13. Personal allowance: £12,570. Payroll applies it as tax code 1257L, which gives £12,579 of tax-free pay.
14. Taxable income: £26,546.52 − £12,579 = £13,967.52
15. Basic rate: £13,967.52 × 20% = £2,793.50
16. Income tax: £2,793.50
17. National Insurance: (£28,392 − £12,570) × 8% = £1,265.76
18. Take-home pay: £28,392 − £2,793.50 − £1,265.76 − £1,845.48 = £22,487.26

Where your employer may differ

• The handbook sets weekly pay as 7/365 of salary but does not fix an hourly divisor for overtime. We divide weekly pay by standard weekly hours. Your employer's hourly rate can differ by a few pence.
• You apply the whole-shift rule before entering your hours. We do not infer it from a rota.
• For England and Wales bands 8a to 9, pay above the standard week is a local arrangement. We show plain time: check your contract.
• Local HCAS harmonisation under handbook section 4.6 can change London weighting.
• Sickness and annual-leave averaging of enhancements are not modelled.

This calculator does not cover ambulance staff under Annex 5, on-call pay, bank shifts on a separate contract or recruitment and retention premiums. It uses contribution tiers without modelling differences between the 2015, 1995 and 2008 pension sections. Tax is a whole-year estimate with the standard tax code. Your numbers stay in this browser.

Pay scale: www.nhsemployers.org/system/files/2026-02/2026%20AfC%20pay%20scales.pdf, effective 1 April 2026

Pay scale: www.publications.scot.nhs.uk/files/pcs2026-afc-01.pdf, effective 1 April 2026

Examples of Band 4 roles

Assistant practitioner, pharmacy technician, dental nurse, audio visual technician and trainee psychological wellbeing practitioner are the Band 4 examples given on the NHS careers page on Agenda for Change pay.

The pension tier change at the Band 4 top point

NHS Pension contributions are tiered. The rate depends on which pay range a salary falls in, and it then applies to the whole salary. The Band 4 entry salary sits in the same tier as Bands 2 and 3. The top point is above the upper limit of that tier, so the rate on all of the pay goes up.

As a result the pension deduction jumps from £1,845.48 to £2,586.03 when a Band 4 employee reaches the top point. Take-home rises from £22,487.26 to £23,885.62, which is only about half of the increase in salary.

The extra contribution buys more pension, since the NHS scheme builds up a pension in proportion to pay. The figures here show only the effect on take-home pay.

Tax and the Scottish Band 4 scale

England's Band 4 is taxed at the basic rate only. Income tax is £2,793.50 at entry and £3,198.39 at the top, and National Insurance goes from £1,265.76 to £1,486.96.

Scotland's Band 4 runs from £31,537 to £34,303. The Scottish top point falls exactly where a higher tier of the Scottish scheme begins, and its pay is the first on the Scottish scale to reach the intermediate income tax rate of 21%. Scottish take-home is £24,501.64 and £25,853.91 a year. The Band 5 page shows the next step up, and the NHS pay calculator handles part-time hours.

Questions

Why does the Band 4 top point add so little take-home pay?

The top point crosses into a higher NHS Pension tier, so the higher rate applies to the whole salary. Together with tax and National Insurance, that takes about half of the raise.

What is Band 4 a month after tax in England?

A full-time Band 4 employee in England takes home £1,873.94 a month at the entry point and £1,990.47 a month at the top point in 2026/27.

Does part-time Band 4 pay use the same pension tier?

Not always. The tier depends on actual pay, so a part-time salary at the Band 4 top point can stay in the lower tier and keep a lower contribution rate.